polarity
by altschmerz
Summary: Wherein some things are more important than Clayton Haas's orders not to tell anyone what happened, Caleb has guilt problems, Iris is protective but also too smart to fall for a cover up, and Will gets some visitors in the hospital. Or, finding common ground via mutual investment in another person: the story of how Caleb Haas and Iris Chang had a civil conversation (eventually).


I couldn't stand leaving it like that after Will and Caleb's cult infiltration plan went belly-up, Will got beat up with a pipe, and Shelby and Iris were under the impression Caleb essentially did it for kicks. Also I needed more follow-through after that whole situation, where are my hospital scenes, Quantico, c'mon. No ships intended 'cept friendship, feel free to interpret how you want though.

Warnings for: referenced past suicide a la Caleb's friend Ross Edwards, description of injuries, minor description of past violence, two uses of the f word

For my h/c bingo square: bruises

* * *

"Wow. You look like absolute shit, dude." The words follow a low whistle, blunt and sardonic commentary overlaying the gripping nausea in Caleb's gut. It had arrived the moment he set foot in the hospital and only mounted in strength upon entering Will's room. Because he does. Look like shit. So much so that, for a second longer than he's necessarily proud of, Caleb had thought he might actually be dead, contrary to the heart monitor blipping obnoxiously along in the otherwise silent room. There it had been, proof that for all his many numbered faults, Caleb had not actually crossed over into homicide, and still there were those moments of doubt.

He can't stop seeing it. Will on the ground in a bloody, crumpled heap. The image is burned into the back of his eyelids, there every time Caleb blinks, and the phantom weight of a metal pipe burns his palm.

"I'm sorry." Words that don't often grace Caleb Haas's lips, but if there is ever a time for them, it'd be now. "Jesus, Will, I'm so sorry."

Will still doesn't answer. Of course he doesn't. He's still unconscious. Unconscious in a hospital bed Caleb put him in, however unwillingly. That thought is just a little too heavy on top of the thousand pound load already strapped to his back, so Caleb, in a fit of crude selfishness and out of a need to shift the blame somewhere else for just a _second_ , does what he does best. Deflects like a pro.

"You never should have gone in there," he spits in a low voice that sounds more wounded than angry. "You never should have insisted on helping me. I was in already. I was _in_ , and you… Nobody else needed to get involved, I never should have let you-" And there it is again. ' _I_ never should have.'

 _I never should have let Will find out. I never should have let him help me. I never should have beat a restrained man near to death no matter what they would have done to us if I hadn't. I never should have hurt my friend._

 _I never should have left Ross behind._

Which, ultimately, is what it comes down to, isn't it? If Caleb had never abandoned Ross there alone, if he'd fought harder to get him out of Sistemics, none of this would have happened. He could be done with those people for good. Will wouldn't be hospitalized. Ross would be alive.

The point at which it all gets to be too heavy comes swiftly and vengefully, sending Caleb crashing down into a chair as if his knees have been shot out from under him. He jams the heels of his hands against his eyes and tries to quell whatever it is inside him that's trying to rip its way out of his chest. It feels like his lungs are about to explode, and it's all he can do to force himself to keep breathing.

It's some indeterminate amount of time later that Caleb lifts his head and forces himself to look at Will. _Face what you've done,_ a voice whispers in his mind, sounding echoingly like his father. _Be a man, Caleb_.

From the look of him, even the simple act of breathing must be agonizing. The damage to Will's torso is mercifully hidden from view, but what Caleb _can_ see is extensive and ugly. Bruises mottle a sickening amount of his visible skin, ranging from deep blue-purple to bright angry red, just about everywhere Caleb looks. His cheekbones are shaded in dark, and a starburst of sub-dermal bleeding spreads out from his closed right eye, creeping across his face. The strips across his nose make him look like a boxer who just lost the most brutal fight of his career. The worst part, to Caleb, however, is the near-black stripes of bruising littering Will's arms and shoulders. The pipe and been unforgiving, and while Caleb had held back as much as possible, there was only so much he could do being watched like a hawk by sadists with genius level IQs and a dangerous attention to detail. It's pretty obvious to see - the next couple of weeks are going to be hellishly painful for Will. Not for the first time, Caleb finds himself glad that Will is out cold. That way there's no one around to see how his eyes glaze over, seeing one particular long, thin, rectangular bruise on Will's upper left arm and remembering exactly how it got there.

When the pipe made contact, it sent vibrations all the way up Caleb's arms, and they itch now, the memory of how much strength he had put behind each swing, how easily he had inflicted this much pain on someone he called a friend.

Will looks small and easy to hurt, like this. It's wrong somehow, like he should be standing in the doorway quoting from the Sistemics book instead of flat on his back in a chilly hospital room, where anyone could do anything to him and he'd be powerless to defend himself.

It's this frightening vulnerability combined with guilt-borne impulsivity and the fact that if nobody sees him do it he's got plausible deniability that has Caleb reaching out to tentatively grasp Will's wrist. The rationale behind doing so is nothing he could explain if he tried, so he thinks _if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it,_ and goes with it.

(It might, somewhere in the back of Caleb's mind, have something to do with proving to himself that his hands are still capable of gentleness. It's something you can never come back from, knowing what your hands can do to another person. Maybe it's something about how thinking about Will unmoving in a hospital bed, unable to defend himself, is melding in his mind with Will coughing up blood in an alley, unable to defend himself, until Will's pulse under his fingers is the only thing reminding him which is which.)

Will's pulse is strong. At least that's something. Caleb drops his head down onto the edge of the bed and tries to forget about then and focus on now.

"Get the fuck out of here."

Caleb jerks his head up and snatches his hand back so fast it's like he's been burnt and turns to face Iris Chang, standing in the doorway and sporting a face angrier and a voice colder than he's seen or heard the entire time he's known her. He jumps out of the chair and holds his chin up high, a lifetime of arrogant cloud-cover rolling in upon being caught… being caught what, caring about his friend?

Thankfully for Caleb's lack of enthusiasm at the idea of analyzing any more of his own baggage, Iris wastes no time in barreling right onwards.

"I said _get_ the _fuck_ away from Will," Iris orders, lips curled in a snarl.

When she'd left Will's room fifteen or so minutes earlier to get a fresh cup of coffee, the last thing she'd expected to find upon returning was _Caleb Haas_ , hand laid over Will's wrist and face more stricken than he had any damn right to be. Caleb doesn't get to be scared for Will. Not when he's responsible for all of this to begin with.

Iris watches Caleb's face turn from the previous look of fear to a well-familiar expression of haughty indifference, and hates him more than she honestly thought was possible. Then he speaks, and Iris finds that no, there's still more contempt in her yet, just for him.

"You're not the only person allowed in the hospital, Furiosa."

"You are just…" In a rare moment heretofore nearly unheard of, Iris is struck speechless. "You are unbelievable. I thought even you wouldn't stoop so low as to nearly _beat somebody to death_ and then _show up in his hospital room_. What is _wrong_ with you, Haas?"

"You don't have a monopoly on caring about him, he's my friend too."

"If this is what you do to your _friends_ , I would really hate to be your enemy."

"It's not like I had a choice," Caleb shoots back when he regains the ability to speak, and it takes every ounce of Iris's considerable self-control to not deck the entitled bastard right in his indignant face. "You don't know those people, they'd have put a bullet in my head and then _his_ in a _second_ ," he snaps his fingers to illustrate his point, "and then go on about their day like nothing happened."

Something about this doesn't feel right. Some of the white-hot rage in Iris's chest subsides slightly, making room for creeping tendrils of suspicion to take root. She may not trust Caleb as far as she can throw him, not by a long shot, but she can smell a lie when she's told one, and the thing he's saying - the note of near hysteria under the words? It's real. The pieces aren't adding up. Shelby's recount of the incident that left what was for all intents and purposes Iris's only friend hospitalized is not jiving with what she's hearing now from the man responsible.

"Okay," she says warily, crossing the room and reclaiming her previously held position next to Will's bed. She sets her coffee down next to the empty cardboard cup and aviator sunglasses already on the small end table, then folds her arms and gives him a piercing look. It's a look that says, very clearly, 'l _ie to me, Haas, and I will_ know'. "Explain. What the hell happened?"

As he explains the infiltration and the less than satisfying results, from Will's demonstration of his uncanny imitation skill to being handed a pipe and having to 'prove himself' with it, the implicit threat of both of their lives hanging over his head, Iris's anger dims. Oh, it's still there, not nearly dissipated completely. This was never Will's fight to begin with, and Iris has never wished her friend was more cutthroat than she does right now. Caleb never should have let Will get involved in the first place. Yet even as she thinks this, Iris knows Will is a grown adult capable of weighing risks and making his own decisions. Much as she would like to lay the blame for this solely (venomously, protectively) on Caleb's shoulders, she has to acknowledge it was maybe not totally his fault.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, someone got fed a cover story. By Iris's figuring, either Shelby lied to her, or Deputy Director Haas lied to Shelby. Remembering the conversation where she'd gotten it confirmed the mugging story was a crock of bull, Iris finds it hard to believe Shelby told her a made up version of what happened. It's not entirely a lie, Caleb had been the one to take a pipe to Will's ribcage - and don't think Iris is about to forget that any time soon - but the lens through which the events are recounted makes a big difference.

The difference between, for example, the image of Caleb Haas as a heartless cultist who callously attacked someone who was altruistically trying to help him at great personal risk, and as, yeah, kind of an asshole, but also a person who was forced under extreme duress to hurt somebody he genuinely seems to give at least half a damn about, if the way he'd looked when Iris walked in was any indication.

Whoever decided to present the story the way Iris first heard it must have known what kind of light it would paint Caleb in, and had done it anyway. Since she has a hard time seeing Shelby willing to do that, regardless of the status of her and Caleb's weird and questionably well thought through relationship, that leaves the other option - Deputy Director Haas.

Caleb's father is willing to tell that kind of lie about him, and judging by the way he looks when Iris tells him the version she heard, Caleb isn't the least bit surprised. Filing that information away, Iris sits back in her chair. The room's other conscious occupant is still standing awkwardly by the door, and she sighs.

"I don't like you," Iris informs Caleb. Seeing him about to reply to that, Iris rolls her eyes and holds up a hand, stopping him before he gets the chance to say anything. "Hang on, I'm not done. As I was _saying_ , I don't like you. But for whatever godforsaken reason, Will does. And I may not like you, but I do believe you. So." She takes a deep breath and hopes she won't regret this. "You can stay," Iris informs him, nodding to the room's other chair, shoved over in a corner.

By some miracle of self-preservation and priorities, Caleb doesn't comment on the implication that he needs her permission to do so. Instead, he gives her a curt nod and pulls the other chair over opposite her.

Iris, satisfied with this, picks her coffee back up and props her feet on the bed, by Will's shins.

"You better wake up soon, buddy," Iris tells her unconscious friend, swiping at a stray piece of Will's hair with the backs of her fingers. Caleb is two for two in not antagonizing situations best left unantagonized, choosing not to make a comment about this either. "Sitting here watching you sleep is getting really tedious." This time, Caleb does say something.

"He hasn't woken up at all?" He sounds worried, and Iris resents him fractionally less.

"Not since I was able to come," she answers. "The doctors said he came to earlier, but not for long. He's on some serious drugs; they've got him doped up to his gills. Plus." She stops for a second, shooting him an unreadable look and hoping he doesn't take this part personally. "The damage is pretty serious. His body's trying to fix itself. He needs a lot of rest right now."

Caleb winces and nods. With an audibly heaved breath, he slumps in his chair and crosses his arms, dropping his chin to his chest. Iris reaches into her bag and pulls out one of her study books, cracking it open. It's exactly these positions they're in when Will opens his eyes. The first hint he's finally reached awareness is a slight cough, followed by a low groan. In an instant, both Caleb and Iris have snapped to attention, rocketing upright in their identical, heinously uncomfortable hospital room chairs.

The moment Will and Iris make eye contact, Caleb can see both of their expressions change. The panic that had been mounting in Will fades, replaced by reassurance. Whatever had brought them together, whatever basis there was for a friendship whose strangeness was probably only surpassed by Will and Caleb's own, it's easy to tell Will trusts Iris. If Iris is here, things are okay. Iris herself looks relieved beyond words, eyes shining a little too bright. She's smiling, a genuine, happy smile. Caleb is struck suddenly by how scared she'd been. Of course, he'd already known that, who wouldn't have been? Hell, _he_ was. But something about the open gratitude on her face makes Caleb uncomfortable, like he's seeing something about her she wouldn't want him to know.

"Hey," Will says, the word riding on a cracked breath, edge of his mouth tugging up just slightly into a faint shadow of an answering grin.

"Hey," Iris says back, relaxing into her original place in her chair. "You don't ever do anything by half, do you." It isn't a question, and Will doesn't answer. Iris indicates Caleb with her chin. "Somebody's here to see you."

Will turns his head slowly, it clearly hurting him to do so, and Caleb's mouth feels bone dry. The apology that had come so easily earlier is caught in his throat. Try as he might, he can't force it out. Luckily for Caleb, Will takes the initiative and speaks first.

"Did you find him?" Will asks, moving his mouth as little as possible when speaking the words. Despite this, one of the splits in his lower lip opens back up, leaving a gruesome red trail down his cheek and onto the pristine white pillowcase. "Your friend?"

Ross is not something Caleb especially wants to talk about in front of Iris of all people. When telling her what happened, Caleb had left out the part where his motivation for infiltrating Sistemics had a lot less to do with his father's op and a lot more to do with finally saving his best friend. But after all that, after what he'd been willing to do for someone he'd never evenmet , Caleb thought Will deserved an answer. He deserved to know how it had ended, screw what Caleb's father had said about how no one could know what really happened.

"He died," Caleb says, his voice a raw whisper. He can feel the backs of his eyes stinging fiercely. "Ross killed himself. We were too late." No, that isn't right. "I was too late."

"Oh." The way Will is frowning has to ache, the skin of his bruised forehead pulling downward. "I really." Will closes his eyes and swallows, trying again. "I really did hope you would find him. That must be awful for you."

"Yeah." Caleb blinks rapidly and hopes he doesn't start bawling right here in the hospital in front of Iris Chang. "It is. My dad told me I couldn't tell anyone, that we had to keep it a secret, that the whole thing would be blown if I told, but." When he smiles it's rueful and bitter. "You know. Who would believe me anyway, what with everything he's already apparently told everyone about me. Even if it somehow made it from one of you to someone who could do something about it, the source is me, so. Guess there's an upshot to your dad telling everyone you care about that you're a liar who got sucked back into everything you've been fighting to get back from for eight years, huh?" He snorts, looking down at his hands, fingers knotted together so tight his knuckles are bloodless. "Even if the investigation did get discredited, it's not like Ross would have gotten any jus-" Caleb breaks off, sucking in sharp breath.

Silence falls over the small room, once more only broken by the tick of the clock on the wall and the incessant heart monitor.

"Thank you," Caleb says quietly, when he feels like he can speak again without breaking down completely. "For trying. You took a big risk, and it- Thank you."

Will's only answer is another slight, tiny smile, which is enough.

After a combination of pain medication and stress on his body puts Will back to sleep, Caleb can feel Iris's gaze burning into him. He staunchly doesn't look at her, getting up out of the chair and buttoning his jacket.

"I should take off," he says, eyes still averted as he heads for the door. Iris's voice stops him in his tracks right as he's about to exit.

"Hey Haas."

Caleb freezes in place, one hand already stretched out towards the doorknob. He looks at her over his shoulder, taking in the completely serious look on her face. "What?"

"I'm sorry. About your friend."

She says nothing else, and Caleb nods, turning and leaving swiftly, swiping at his face with his sleeve as he goes. Walking out of the building and towards the parking lot, Caleb tries not to think too hard about how Iris, a woman who by her own word could not stand him, had expressed more genuine sympathy for his loss than his own father had.


End file.
